A Happy and Blessed Easter to you too. I would like to thank you for all of the work that you do. Keep up the good work. I have you in my prayers. Happy Easter to all of the other readers out there.
Now here is how us Latvian celebrate Easter:
Priecīgas Lieldienas (Happy Easter).
Palm Sunday (Pussy Willow Sunday in Latvia) – we wake up being swatted with pussy willows while family members recite “Apaļš ka pūpols” – “Round like a pussy willow”
Easter eggs dyed with onion skins. Many years ago my family would in addition to the usual egg coloring, would wrap eggs in onion skins and boil them. Here is a link to show you how:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BoB5XMayNo
Then before we ate the eggs we’d have an egg knocking contest. We would knock each others eggs as shown in the video. I just read an article on the “Diena Latvia” site which gives the secrets to producing that hardest egg shell so as to be assured of victory.
The Saturday before Easter we spend baking traditional Latvian festive foods – pīrāgi, raisin bread, and cottage cheese raisin bread. I’ve tried to find the recipes on line closest to what my family does:
For pīrāgi try this one:
http://www.latvianstuff.com/Piragi.html
We’ve found it best when it comes to the filling to use cooking onions, and a bacon/Canadian bacon mix where the meat is not cured and were it is sweetened as little as possible with things like brown sugar. This works best. I once experimented with bacon and venison which worked out fine for my tastes. Just make sure that the venison is boiled first before being diced as 15 minutes in the oven may be insufficient to cook the venison.
For raisin bread, the big pretzel is usually used in place of a birthday cake. For holidays, however, we bake the raisin bread using the same recipe into loafs:
It’s kind of hard for me to locate the Latvian cottage cheese raisin bread recipe which comes close to what we do at home. For us it is important to find unsalted cottage cheese. You may need to find an ethnic food store or an organic foods store. You may try the recipe here:
Happy Easter everyone, thanks for all you do Dr. Pruss!
ReplyDeleteAlex:
ReplyDeleteA Happy and Blessed Easter to you too. I would like to thank you for all of the work that you do. Keep up the good work. I have you in my prayers. Happy Easter to all of the other readers out there.
Now here is how us Latvian celebrate Easter:
Priecīgas Lieldienas (Happy Easter).
Palm Sunday (Pussy Willow Sunday in Latvia) – we wake up being swatted with pussy willows while family members recite “Apaļš ka pūpols” – “Round like a pussy willow”
Easter eggs dyed with onion skins. Many years ago my family would in addition to the usual egg coloring, would wrap eggs in onion skins and boil them. Here is a link to show you how:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BoB5XMayNo
Then before we ate the eggs we’d have an egg knocking contest. We would knock each others eggs as shown in the video. I just read an article on the “Diena Latvia” site which gives the secrets to producing that hardest egg shell so as to be assured of victory.
The Saturday before Easter we spend baking traditional Latvian festive foods – pīrāgi, raisin bread, and cottage cheese raisin bread. I’ve tried to find the recipes on line closest to what my family does:
For pīrāgi try this one:
http://www.latvianstuff.com/Piragi.html
We’ve found it best when it comes to the filling to use cooking onions, and a bacon/Canadian bacon mix where the meat is not cured and were it is sweetened as little as possible with things like brown sugar. This works best. I once experimented with bacon and venison which worked out fine for my tastes. Just make sure that the venison is boiled first before being diced as 15 minutes in the oven may be insufficient to cook the venison.
For raisin bread, the big pretzel is usually used in place of a birthday cake. For holidays, however, we bake the raisin bread using the same recipe into loafs:
http://www.entangledinromance.com/2012/12/19/recipes-and-memories-klingeres-from-inara-scott/
It’s kind of hard for me to locate the Latvian cottage cheese raisin bread recipe which comes close to what we do at home. For us it is important to find unsalted cottage cheese. You may need to find an ethnic food store or an organic foods store. You may try the recipe here:
http://www.latvianstuff.com/Danishes.html
More Latvian recipes found here:
http://www2.arnes.si/~ssgikolj/_private/Izdelki0506/KUHARSKE%20KNJIGE/LATVIAN%20FOOD%20SPECIALITIES
Other Latvian Easter traditions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huQMI0hROJo
Happy Easter, Dr. Pruss.
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter :)
ReplyDelete